Exploring Europe 2013: When in Rome...

I felt like I was in a movie the whole time we were in Rome. First of all we took a bus from the airport to the train station, which is close to our hostel. We had our own room at the hostel and the Italian architecture (giant doors and windows overlooking the street) was the first thing that made me feel like we were in a movie. With the whole day ahead of us, we set out to explore. We knew we wanted to do some tours the next day, so we went to places we wanted to see on our own. We obviously had to stop for real Italian gelato as we walked around and saw some of Rome's magnificent buildings. We saw many basilicas (cathedrals) including one with the most incredible organ called Basilica Di Santa Maria Degli Angeli. I wonder that if you grow up here, you don't appreciate the history and magnificence of the city you live in. Eating dinner made me feel, again, like I was in a movie scene. A restaurant on a street in Italy, eating the best pizza, make friends and someone tried to sell me roses. Seeing the historical sites from a distance got us really excited for then next day.

We woke up to pouring rain. Luckily we are from Vancouver so the rain could not scare us away. For the first time, we were thankful for the people try to sell us things on the corners. With our new cheap umbrella, we walked to the Colosseum. We made an impromptu decision to pay for the tour to learn the actual history and we do not regret it one bit! Jordan said he found it more interesting than the pyramids and it is now on his 7 Wonders of the World list. They ended up not charging us for the tour, only the entrance ticket, which we are thankful for because after that we headed to the Vatican and it cost us a pretty penny. We both agree that we would have regretted not doing the tour of the Vatican museum, Sistine chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. It was so breathtaking and I recommend everyone see it. Take a tour, you learn so much about the history of Rome and its change from pagan religions to Christianity and so much more. It was quite an long tour so after we stopped to eat before we went to our next site. We ended the day with a look at the Pantheon and Roman Forum. We were fascinated and didn't realize how influential ancient Rome was and is to the building blocks of modern civilization. On our walk home we stopped to get gelato and picked up the coolest picture book comparing present Rome to what it would have looked like in the past.

This morning we went to our favorite coffee place before packing up our bags and heading to our next Italian destination. We both really enjoyed Rome and the movie we felt we were in. We are so thankful that we have the opportunity to travel and expand our way of thinking at the ages we are. We have met some really interesting people and are so blessed to be traveling the World. I have so many pictures it was hard to choose, even with all the rain. I only wish we were allowed to take pictures in the Sistine chapel.